1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an agricultural machine, and more specifically to devices for improving, controlling and regulating the processing of harvested crop.
2. Related Art
German Patent Application No. DE 196 24 733 A1 describes an agricultural combine harvester having threshing members and a grain/straw separator in a rear region constructed as a rack vibrator. A return pan is located below the grain/straw separator for conveying grain that is separated by the grain/straw separator opposite the direction of the crop being threshed. The separated crop is transferred to a cleaning device having sieve elements. An air flow stream created by a forced-draught fan flows through holes in the sieve elements. The cleaning device quickly reaches its limit when throughputs are high. An exhaust fan is associated with the return pan, wherein the exhaust fan extracts non-grain components from the crop stream passing through the cleaning device. Hence, the cleaning device is supplied with a crop mixture interspersed with fewer contaminants. Because the crop stream of the return pan and the crop stream located on the grain pan have opposite directions of movement resulting in strong turbulence, the crop steams are not uniform toward a rear end of the agricultural combine harvester. This disturbance in crop flow results in an inefficient cleaning capacity.
European Patent No. EP 0 314 695 B1 describes comminuting and mixing devices. The comminuting and mixing devices are important for distributing chopped cereal straw over a field, thereby accelerating the rotting process of the chopped cereal straw.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above.